French students ‘were stabbed 250 times in evil, inhuman attack’

Horror: Gabriel Ferez, left, and Laurent Bonomo, both 23, were students at Imperial College when they were killed in Mr Bonomo’s New Cross flat

Two French students were tortured and stabbed almost 250 times in their home in an attack of "unmitigated evil", the Old Bailey heard today.

Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez suffered two hours of torture before their drug-addict killers set their bound and tied bodies alight, leaving a scene of unimaginable horror, the jury was told.

Suspected killers Dano Sonnex and Nigel Farmer forced Mr Bonomo and Mr Ferez to give them their bank account Pins, but when a cash machine swallowed one of the cards they returned to Mr Bonomo's New Cross flat and stabbed one 194 times and the second 50 times on 29 June last year.

One raider returned again to set the flat alight to try to destroy the evidence but inflicted severe burns on himself.

Sonnex, 23, and Farmer, 34, have a history of armed robbery and violence, the court heard, and stole £360, bank cards, mobile phones and two PlayStation games in the attack.

"Enough to keep them in drugs for a few days," said Crispin Aylett QC, prosecuting.

"Just why was it that the two men had to die? It may be that egging one another on, possibly intoxicated by a cocktail of drink and drugs, they simply got carried away."

The two students, both 23 and studying biochemistry at Imperial College, were "bright, talented and engaging young men with brilliant futures ahead of them".

Their parents travelled from France to be in court to hear Mr Aylett open the case against the alleged raiders.

Mr Bonomo was the tenant of the bedsit in New Cross at the time of the attack.

Firemen were called after an explosion and bright orange flash ripped through the small flat. "The firemen found a scene of almost unimaginable horror," said Mr Aylett.

"The two men, dressed only in their underpants, had been tied up. They had been bound at the ankles and wrists, their heads wrapped with towels.

"They had been subjected to an attack of brutal and sustained ferocity. Both of them were repeatedly stabbed in the head. In some instances a knife had been used with such force that the skull had been penetrated and damage caused to the brain."

Earlier that day £360 cash had been taken from Mr Bonomo's account through a cash machine. Somebody tried to withdraw cash from Mr Ferez's account but the cash machine swallowed the bank card.

Police believe the raiders were attempting burglary when they entered through a window left open on the hot summer's night.

Once disturbed they tied up the occupants, took their bank cards and tortured them for their Pins.

"For some reason the burglars had been unable to get any money from

Mr Ferez's account as the card was retained by the machine," Mr Aylett said. "So, to take revenge for the fact that they had been unable to steal money from Mr Ferez, both men were murdered in a way that can only be described as inhuman.

"Later that night one of them returned and, under cover of darkness, set light to the flat."

A neighbour saw a white man in a baseball cap run away from the scene and later supplied police with a detailed e-fit of the suspect.

The court heard that, as a result, Farmer, who had spent days covering his burns with cream and lotion, handed himself in — but police in Lewisham thought he might be a hoaxer and told him to wait by the civilian receptionist.

He allegedly told a member of the public sitting next to him: "I just killed two people and the police don't f***ing want to know anything about it."

Farmer had been living with Sonnex and his brother Bernie, and Sonnex was arrested at his grandparents' home in Peckham. As he was driven off in the police van he started laughing long and loud, the court heard.

Sonnex, of Deptford, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and further charges of false imprisonment and arson. He has pleaded guilty to burglary of a bank card, credit card, two Sony PSP consoles and two mobile phones.